HackNight #40 – Post-Midterms Tech Review

November 20, 2018 @ 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm

We are so excited to present our speakers for the next hacknight. November 20 will be a night of learning what worked, what could have been better, and what the outlook is for tech in progressive campaigns.

Leo Sussan, tech director of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, will give us a glimpse their tech operations on the lead up to Ocasio-Cortez’s historic victory for US House Rep. We’ll learn how tech was instrumental in the intense management of the press, social media, fundraising, and voter engagement.

Rachel Brody, Deputy Field Director for Max Rose’s successful US House campaign, will share how various tech solutions handled the massive surge of volunteers — from 300 at the start to 6,900 by the end of the campaign — that helped the campaign achieve victory.

Rachel Konowitz, COO & Co-founder of Motivote — a technology that aims to get young people out to the polls by making voting fun and social — will walk us through how they used a lean, agile, and test-driven approach to build a system that was able to bring 89% of the 18-29 yr old people that used their system out to the polls.

Samuel Cole, developer from ActBlue, will share how the company enabled campaigns and organizations to harness the power of grassroots fundraising.

The 2018 Midterm elections have just come to an end. After months of grueling campaign work, progressive grassroots campaigns across the United States used technology to reach out, communicate with, and mobilize voters. Indeed, their technology had a tremendous impact.

We can see the effects of technology in fundraising, voter outreach, mobilization, and getting the vote out. How were these tools utilized, and what made them effective in their respective campaigns?

We will have speakers from various organizations and electoral campaigns, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s successful campaign to become NYCD-14’s representative, to non-profit organizations. Speakers will be announced next week.

Did you work on technologies that were used during the midterm elections? Email us at organizers (at) progressivehacknight.org !

Support Progressive HackNight!

Building connections and bonds between us is an act of solidarity and resistance. We cannot do this alone. We need your help to keep building a strong, impactful community. Please consider supporting Progressive HackNight through a donation or by volunteering.

Progressive HackNight is a bi-weekly gathering of coders and creatives, makers and doers, to foment and inspire action. We use our collective talents and abilities to push forward pro-social change in benefit of the common good. We’re all about making great ideas happen.

An intersection of technology and activism. A physical space for progressive activists, organizers, data wranglers, ux/ui designers, and coders to come together, discuss the issues, and work on projects together that will drive the movement forward.

This event is open to technologists, organizers, data enthusiasts, ux/ui, creatives, project managers, product managers, coders, etc, of all backgrounds/experiences.

Food will be provided!

The schedule is as follows:

6:15p – 6:45p : registration, networking (mingle!)

6:45p – 6:50p : Opening / Community News

6:50p – 7:20p : Dispatches from the Grassroots: Ocasio 2018

7:20 – 10:30 : Breakout!

After the program, the community will break out into two types of groups: discussion groups and working groups. Please notify the team at organizers@progressivehacknight.org if you want to announce a breakout group for that night.

DISCUSSION GROUP

Groups centered on learning new things, discussing solutions to addressable problems, building networks, and strategizing. Start one by filling out our Project Ideas page

WORKING GROUP

Working groups are breakouts focused on either onboarding, training, or just having a team setup on collectively coding for your awesome project! Start one by going to our Project Ideas page